Larry King

September 30, 2013

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights this week, while Keith Olbermann fulfills a contractual obligation to TBS that predates his recent return to ESPN, Olbermann’s eponymous nightly show will be hosted by Larry King.

August 20, 2012

July 16, 2012

Did you see Robert Blake on the “Piers Morgan Show” last week? You can catch up with it on the CNN website, even if it’s now become a series of bites or takes, with bleeps here and there. It was the movie of the week, where you couldn’t take your eyes off the screen and didn’t know what to believe. What more can you ask for?
First, the contestants: Piers Morgan is 47, six-feet-one and barely shy of 200 pounds, I’d guess. He has a plush, self-satisfied poker face, not too far from David Cameron.

January 17, 2011

The end of Larry King Live, after 50 years and a steep drop in ratings, was inevitable in a cable news climate that values mindless partisanship over mindless nonpartisanship. In contrast to the likes of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox’s Glenn Beck, CNN’s middle-of-the-road tack was flailing. King’s farewell aptly coincided with the end of another institution in softball interviewing: The Oprah Winfrey Show, that stronghold of cheery neutrality and generic goodwill.

December 16, 2010

The final episode of "Larry King Live" on CNN aired Thursday. I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but King isn't dead yet, and come to think of it, I have no problem with speaking ill of the dead anyway. Here's a classic moment from the program in which Jerry Seinfeld disabused King of his apparent belief that Seinfeld was ending because NBC cancelled it:
It's not a crazy guess.

December 15, 2010

Mitt Romney, as my colleague Jonathan Chait keeps pointing out, has a big problem as he pursues the 2012 Republican presidential nomination: His signature achievement as governor of Massachusetts was creating a universal health coverage scheme that looks a lot like the Affordable Care Act.
In particular, the Massachusetts reforms include an individual mandate--a requirement that everybody get health insurance. The Affordable Care Act has one of those too.

August 20, 2010

Dr. Laura wouldn’t countenance Dr. Laura, that’s for sure. If the radio talk show host—who has written a slew of best-selling books and who regularly encourages her readers to “do the right thing”—got a call about a bullying, abusive friend who has an instant, headstrong opinion on everything, who views patience and compassion the same way Sarah Palin views science, it’s easy to imagine her response.

March 06, 2010

There were moments--long moments--during the Iraq war when I had my doubts. Even deep doubts. Frankly, I couldn’t quite imagine any venture like this in the Arab world turning out especially well. This is, you will say, my prejudice. But some prejudices are built on real facts, and history generally proves me right. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
Of course, Iraq hasn’t turned out that well. Sunni jihadniks are still routinely murdering pious Shi’a on pilgrimage to Karbala.